Never, Ever Getting Back Together: The Bands Who Have Refused To Reform

With the news that both LCD Soundsystem, who called time unequivocally on their career with a mammoth Madison Square Garden show in 2011, and Guns N’ Roses, whose twin figureheads Slash and Axl Rose have been at loggerheards for years, are reuniting for Coachella this year, we look at other bands who’ve refused to reunite. Because, well, it turns out you never know…

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The '70s Swedish pop group ABBA could make plenty 'Money Money Money' out of a reunion. Yet founding member Benny Andersson told The Telegraph in 2014: “I think we’re doing [the fans] a favour by not doing [a reunion]! I thinks it’s better that everybody remembers it as it was, when we had the energy.”

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This would be a miracle, given the bad blood between Morrissey and the rest of the Smiths. Two years ago he told Billboard: "I don't know a single person who wants a Smiths reunion! There aren't any bands I like to see again because your memory of them is how they were in their prime or at their best or at their most desperate, and you look to them to be someone that they no longer are."

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New York art-punk group Talking Heads disbanded in 1991, with singer David Byrne (who teamed up with St. Vincent in recent years) citing that old favourite, "creative reasons". In 2011 he told Digital Spy: "I haven't heard any of those offers for a while. For a while, yes, there was offers for Talking Heads to do a reunion tour and that sort of thing, but it didn't seem very likely."

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REM performed together for over 30 years but called it quits in 2011. In 2014 frontman Michael Stipe appeared on US television and claimed a reunion "will never happen… There's no point. I love those guys very much and I respect them hugely as musicians and as songwriters and everything but I just don’t want to do that thing that people do...I despise nostalgia. I'm not good at looking back".

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Detroit garage rockers and fake siblings The White Stripes (who divorced in 2000) disbanded in 2011. The following year, Jack White was clear about his feelings on the matter, telling NME: "I can only imagine the reason [to reunite] being if we went bankrupt or really needed the cash". In an online Q&A this year he revealed that he no longer talks to Meg because "she doesn’t answer her phone".

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"I was being asked about a reunion five weeks after I left the band. It’s a modern phenomenon. It’s a modern disease... Ten years from now, if I wake up one morning and go, 'You know what? I think I’m going to do it,” I can guarantee you, just for spite, Liam would say, “Oh, no, I’m not keen.' Because that’s the way shit works." Noel's words on the mooted Oasis reunion in a 2015 Esquire interview.

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legendary London rockers Led Zeppelin did a one-off show in 2007 but guitarist Jimmy Page told The Daily Beast last year: "I can’t foresee doing it again, because we all have to agree and agree for the right reasons.”

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There are constant rumours that the Californian indie group Pavement are about to reunite. But drummer Bob Nastanovich said in February last year that their 2010 reunion tour was unlikely to be repeated due to singer Stephen Malkmus: “He can be on the cusp of something really big and really brilliant and just scrap it. The reason can be anything, and he’s always ready to defend his position."

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London rock band The Kinks were doing sibling rivalry before Noel had played a note. In October 2015, guitarist Dave Davies said his brother, the group's singer Ray Davies, was holding up a reunion: “He seems really positive about getting back together but then I wonder if he’s just winding me up. There are a lot of mind games. Our relationship has been difficult and that has taken its toll."

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Mid-noughties emos My Chemical Romance, who split in 2013, got together for a one-off appearance with Sum 41's Derek Whibley, but singer Gerard Way has ruled out a full reunion, saying: “[A reunion] is not something I could see down the line… I definitely don’t think that’s something I would do again.”

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Chicago grunge heroes Smashing Pumpkins released their latest album in 2014, but real fans know it's not the Pumpkins without founding members D'arcy Wretzky, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, who no longer make albums with Corgan. Yet a full reunion is unlikely, as Corgan has threatened to retire the Pumpkins project as he has no interest in "play[ing] 'Siamese Dream' for the rest of my life".

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Minneapolis trio Hüsker Dü are currently rumoured to reunite, though in 2014 frontman Bob Mould said: “Husker Du was a great band but there’s no need to get together and play music. Everyone went their own ways in early 1988. Some things can’t be replicated, and those eight years are best left untarnished.”

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James Murphy, of the beloved New York dance-punk outfit LCD Soundsystem disbanded by the project after three albums in 2011. Promoting 'Shut Up And Play The Hits', a documentary about their final show at Madison Square Garden, Murphy told DIY: “It’s not like we’re going to reform. There will be no reforming.” See you at Coachella 2016, James!